Chapter Text
The things Oliver remembered about the day he rescued Felicity were just the essential ones.
Curtis’ excitement when he found a way to activate the remote subcutaneous tracker Felicity implanted in herself in case of an emergency, and then actually finding her location.
Barry and Ray’s offer to help him out by gathering their individual teams to get her back.
The battle which ensued when they got onto Darhk’s property.Oliver hadn’t seen that amount of blood spilt since his Bratva days, but dealing with Darhk and his army was to kill or be killed. There was no way other out. They knew that now, having tried and failed miserably before.
So, all of them dirtied their hands in order to stop Darhk from wreaking havoc in their cities and harming everyone they loved.
The fight finally ended around dawn. A.R.G.U.S helped to contain the few perpetrators who remained alive in exchange for Oliver delivering Darhk’s head to Waller - which he did gladly.
It was just after the fight when Oliver managed to find Felicity. An eternity, if you asked Oliver, even though she had been held hostage for only seventy-seven hours. Not that it had mattered; if it had been seven minutes, it still would have almost driven him crazy. His pulse hadn’t stopped racing the whole time and if his hands weren’t busy, they were shaking. The uncertainty of whether they find a way to get her back, safe and sound in his arms as she should be, had rocked him to his core.
He had found her in the basement of the building in one the oldest cells, lying on her side in a makeshift bed with her hands and feet bound, her clothes tattered and torn and her high heels gone. The place smelled foul and looked even worse and Oliver couldn’t believe Felicity had been kept there for more than three days.
“Felicity,” he had called, his voice breaking under the strain of relief. He watched her open her eyes and a small smile formed in her lips as she recognized him.
“Ol’ver,” Felicity had said in a weak voice. “You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” he replied as he took one of the explosive arrows out of his quiver. “I’m gonna blow open the lock, okay? And then I’m going to get you out of here.”
“Darhk…”
“He’s dead,” Oliver interrupted gently with a reassuring glance.
There was a pause during which she studied his expression, and then she gave a firm nod. “Good.”
Silently, he set the explosive and in less than a minute he had the cell door opened.
Felicity tried to sit up by herself, but her strength faltered and she’d have fallen back on the old blankets covering the stone floor beneath her, if not for Oliver reaching out to grab her.
“I’m here, hon,” he said, kneeling in front of Felicity. He untied the ropes around her wrists, checking for any wounds caused by the abrasive cord. Repeating the same procedure on her ankles, he realized she had nothing but scrapes.
“Are you hurt anywhere?” He asked as he ran his hands gently over her body.
She shook her head, but stopped mid-action, wincing at the move and he immediately reached up to cup her face. “I’m fine. It’s just a headache,” she assured him, but her words were alarmingly slurred. “They kept me drugged.
He nodded, his hands still cradling her face, tilting it up slightly to meet his eyes.
She looked well… awful. He could still see traces of makeup under her eyes, and faded, fleeting stains of her lipstick. Her lips were swollen as if she had been biting them and there was a small cut on her eyebrow. Her hair, which usually shone, was dirty and there were traces of blood in her roots. She smelled like sweat and dirt, and her skin clammy to the touch but he didn’t care; he only wanted her close. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips softly against her forehead.
While he kissed her, he felt like the weight which had been pressing against his chest lifted and he could finally breathe for the first time in days. As if she was reading his thoughts, her trembling hands covered his own and she pressed them together.
“I’m fine, Oliver,” she assured him, even though she sounded frail and exhausted. “Just take me home.”
Oliver waited until Felicity moved to stand, and then shifted with her. When her knees buckled, her legs weak after days of disuse, he looped one arm under Felicity’s knees and the other around her back, lifting her into his arms. Felicity draped her arms around his neck, exhaling in exhausted relief as she let herself being lifted
With one last look at the grungy cell he turned around and left the cold and the dark with his girlfriend in his arms, finally safe.
When they exited the building their team’s black cargo van was waiting for them a few feet away. Oliver was thankful for Dig’s forethought; he honestly didn’t want Felicity to witness the carnage they’d had to commit to stop Darhk and Co, but Sara had been right when she’d said that to stop the unthinkable you had to be willing to do the unthinkable.
Oliver tried to put Felicity down on the bench seat in the back of the van, intending to sit next to her, only to have her to refuse to let go. As she tightened the grip she had on him, she curled up on his lap, moving her hands from the back of Oliver’s neck only to fist her hands in his hood. Understanding entirely and even sighing in similar relief, he was able to maneuver enough to climb in the vehicle, slide across the bench seat and situate her in his lap, wrapping one of his arms around her shoulder while the other rested on her middle.
He watched his sister close the van’s side door and settle into the passenger’s seat before she turned to him.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking down at Felicity resting in his lap, taking her in as her exhaustion overtook her. “We will be.”
The first thing Oliver did when they arrived home was to seat Felicity in a chair in their bathroom while he took a shower. She wasn’t in any condition to stand up for more than a minute, at least not until she ate something and rested for full eight hours. They could reevaluate then.
The whole time he was showering, Felicity’s eyes were glued to him as if she couldn’t believe he was real. He hated that particular side effect of being held captivate, the disbelief of being out in the world again and having to readjust to the idea of safety after hers had been so thoroughly shattered. He hated witnessing Felicity going through that process even more than he’d hated going through it himself.
After he got out and dried himself off, he filled up the tub with warm water while gathering Felicity’s supplies: her favorite shampoo, conditioner and body wash.
He helped her undress, and when she was completely naked in front of him, he let himself look at the state of her body. The bruises on her wrists that he’d noticed earlier were even more pronounced now, and there were similar marks alongside her ribs, upper arms and hips. There were two cuts on her back deep enough that he knew he’d need to look at after she was clean.
Looking at her, he tried to remember what Darhk had done to other hostages – things only seen in nightmares. He tried to be grateful that her injuries weren’t worse; that compared to some of Darhk’s prisoners, she’d barely been touched. Instead, he sees her perfect skin marred with pain and hatred, and it hurts more than any injury he’s ever received.
Taking her hands into his, he helped her first cross the distance between the chair and the tub, and then helped her gently maneuver her inside. Felicity moved to the spot close to the faucet with hand shower and Oliver followed her cue, sitting on the edge of the tub, only a few inches between them to give him room to help her bathe.
Taking the hand shower, he put his free hand gently on Felicity's face, tilting her head back so the main force of the water fell on her hair. He ran his fingers gently through her dirtied strands to help it get wet before shampooing it. She had her eyes closed when he rinsed her hair, looking somewhat peaceful for the first time since she’d been rescued, and he latched onto that, doubling his efforts to keep her as safe as she was cherished.
When he was satisfied with the state of cleanliness of her hair, he got her bath sponge and started soaping her body. He gently scrubbed her back, her neck, her armpits, descending down her breasts before putting the sponge into her hands so she could scrub her belly and legs. He watched her lean forward lazily, her movements slow but thorough.
When she was done, she reclined again and he started applying conditioner on her hair. That was when her shoulders started to shake and a sense of dread set over him. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was on the way to having a breakdown.
“Hey, honey, it’s okay,” he tried to assure her, squeezing her shoulders. “You’re safe now. Let it all out.”
And she did, slumping over and curling toward him until her face pressed on his thigh, her lithe body shaking with the force of her sobs. She was the picture of distress and his heart ached for her. He hated to see her like that, but understood it would be worse if she bottled up everything she was feeling.
“Shhh, you’re safe,” he repeated his reassurance, rubbing her back. “I came to you like I always do. Darhk won’t ever touch you again,” he promised.
He didn’t know how long they stayed there, with Felicity crying while he murmured words of comfort, but he could feel the water getting cooler on his legs as they remained on the same spot.
Slowly, her sobs subdued, her breathing normalizing. When she seemed back in control, she looked up at him. His heart constricted with the sight of her puffy eyes and sad expression, and he caressed her cheek with the back of his hand.
“You know what was eating me away the whole time I was...there?” she asked with a sniffle.
He shook his head, incapable of finding the words.
“I kept thinking ‘I can’t believe the last thing I said to Oliver was to take the trash out because it was his turn and not that I loved him’,” she confessed, her lips trembling as her eyes brimmed with tears again. He felt his throat clam up as his heart lurched at the scene in front of him. “I should have told you; I should always tell you. I’m sorry.”
He immediately shook his head, his voice hoarse. “No, Felicity. This is not something you ever have to apologize for. Especially not under those…” He couldn’t bring himself to speak the actuality. “…circumstances.”
“I didn’t think I was going to die,” she said boldly, and he didn’t know whether to wince at her words or marvel at her strength. “I knew you’d come for me.” She paused briefly before forcing a reassuring smile. “You always come for me.”
“And I always will,” he promised. “I would tear the world apart just to find you.”
“I know,” she nodded. “Because I’d do the same. I just...hated the idea that the last thing before we got separated was about trash and not how I felt about you.”
Oliver pressed his lips together, trying to quell his reaction; the last thing Felicity needed was for him him to unravel right in front of her. She was the one who needed comfort, not him.
“I know what you mean,” he said simply.
“Yeah?”
He nodded, thinking about the past few days; thinking about how desperate he had been trying to find her, about the lingering silences she wasn’t there to fill. He thought about how as the hours ticked by, his mind kept going back to his mother’s ring lying in the secret compartment in his desk at City Hall instead of on her finger – about how he’d wished she’d had the evidence of his devotion to her to hold onto.
A reminder that her hope and faith in him is not misguided or unearned, but the thing that will always bring him back to her side.
Maybe…maybe he should give it to her now.
“Yeah,” he replied. “The whole time you were away, I just kept thinking about…”
He trailed off, unsure if it was a good moment to tell her about the engagement ring setting on his office. She had been kidnapped after all.
“About what?” She poked his thigh, her eyes finally clear of tears, shining with her natural curiosity and love.
Sighing, he brushed his fingers over her hair, smiling gently at her. If she was asking, he’d have to deliver an honest answer. She’d know he was lying and...he honestly didn’t want to lie or omit the fact he wanted to marry her anymore. Suddenly, the notion he was about to propose made his stomach drop and fill up with knots, a lump in his throat formed by the maelstrom of feelings that were swirling inside of him.
Taking a deep breath, taking one long look at her and knowing he too could be as brave as she, he gathered all his courage and finally spoke.
“I just kept thinking that I hated the thought you were by yourself, with only your hope to cling to, and not something more...prominent.”
A furrow appeared between her brows, confusion reflecting in her eyes.
Yeah, there’s a reason she does the talking.
“What are you…” She started, but he interrupted her again.
“That was terrible, I’m sorry,” he chuckled sheepishly, licking his suddenly dry lips. “What I meant to say was that I wished I’d had courage to propose to you before all of this happened and you understood the whole time you waited for me that I was going to find my way to you. Because that’s what I’ll want to do – plan to do – for the rest of my life.”
Oliver watched Felicity’s expression morph from confusion to the one that resembled her reaction to the time he’d accidentally said he loved her in the Queen mansion. It seemed to have been forever ago, but he couldn’t ever forget the look of astonishment in her face. She stared at him the same way: all wide-eyed and mouth agape.
“Felicity, will you…”
The sound of his voice seemed to snap Felicity out of her shock, because she straightened up her back, her hand clutching his thigh as she looked up at him with wonder in her eyes.
“Yes,” she replied hurriedly. “Yes, I will.”
He blinked slowly, processing her response to his clumsy proposal. A smile crept on his lips as he realized she had said yes.
“Really?” He asked in disbelief.
“Yes,” she nodded emphatically, her whole face lighting up.
Oliver felt a laugh bubbling inside of him at her eager reply, but instead of letting it out, he cupped her face with both hands, leaning down to kiss her beautiful lips softly. Giving her his best smile, he muttered repeatedly against her mouth ‘I love you’, pointing each declaration with a kiss. She smiled the whole time, replying in kind.
Minutes passed when he finally pulled back because his back started to bother him.
“I want to see it!” Felicity said, excitedly. She paused, reconsidering her words and amended. “And by it, I mean my ring.”
Oliver looked at her sheepishly, scratching the side of his face. “About that…”
“Oh no,” Felicity said trying to cover up her disappointment. “You didn’t get one yet! It’s okay, we can…”
“No, no,” he shook his head. “I already have it, but it’s on my office.”
Felicity blinked slowly at him. “You left my ring at City Hall?”
He nodded. “I thought here was too risky for you to find, so I moved to someplace you wouldn’t have free access all the time.”
She looked at him before breaking in a grin. “Okay, I can wait till tomorrow to see it then.”
Oliver chuckled, dropping a kiss on her cheek.
“Okay, let’s finish this bath already,” Felicity said with a smile.
“Yeah, let me rinse your hair.”
Felicity turned her back on him, reclining her head to let Oliver finish.
The rest of the night there was nothing in his mind but the woman he chose to share his life with. Forever.